Prior art machines for installing and securing fasteners are well known in the art and the present invention relates to such machines which are capable of installing either slug or headed rivets or two-piece pin and collar fasteners such as that type manufactured by the Huck Manufacturing Company of Fort Worth, Texas. Slug rivets are illustrated in U.S. Pat. No. 4,819,856 whereas headed rivets are illustrated in U.S. Pat. No. 4,609,134. The two-piece pin and collar fasteners are illustrated in SME paper AD84-842 and also in European patent application 03455935. These fasteners may be installed by a variety of machines and one such machine is illustrated in U.S. Pat. No. 3,534,896. In this particular form of machine a transfer mechanism is provided which performs sequential drilling, rivet upsetting, and shaving operations, the fasteners being inserted after the transfer mechanism has been shifted from its drilling position to its upsetting position.
The fastener installing machine may be provided with differing forms of mechanisms for causing the fastener to be inserted into fastener grasping fingers carried by the machine. For example, if slug rivets are being installed slug rivets will be fed from a storage hopper to a blow tube which will in turn blow the slug rivets into an injecting mechanism or directly into rivet grasping fingers of the type shown in 4,819,856 where they are axially aligned with the centerline of the aperture drilled into the workpieces prior to insertion. If a headed rivet, or a Huck fastener is to be inserted, it will be initially oriented by a mechanism associated with a feed hopper and then blown through a feed tube to an orienting and insertion device. Once such device is shown in 4,609,134 wherein the fastener is caused initially to be oriented by supporting the head of the fastener on shoulders of spaced apart rails, the tail of the fastener extending between the rails, the headed fastener then being shifted laterally by an insertion bar until it is placed between fastener grasping fingers. Various other forms of fastener orienting and insertion devices are known in the art but in all of these it is necessary that the fastener to be oriented be initially transferred through a dedicated feed tube to the orienting and insertion apparatus, which apparatus is specific for a certain tail width of the fastener. In addition, a specific or dedicated feed tube is required which is specific to the head width of the fastener in order to maintain alignment of the fastener as it is transported from the aligner disposed adjacent the feed hopper to the orienting and insertion device.
The foregoing constructions generally perform in a satisfactory manner but require changes to the rivet orienting and insertion apparatus in that every time a new fastener is selected for insertion into workpieces it is necessary to select a new orienting and insertion apparatus if the tail diameter is different. Similarly, a new feed tube is required if the head diameter is different.
In addition, it is sometimes difficult to transport the fastener from the insertion apparatus into the fastener receiving fingers, particularly when using certain forms of transfer mechanisms on the riveting machine as the transfer mechanism may require excessive clearance between its centerline and the end of the insertion apparatus which is closest to the centerline of the machine.